The Macness of Wii

Not quite two years ago I first encountered the Nintendo Wii. Some of the
people at work set one up in a conference room during lunch and were busy
bowling and playing tennis. I was drawn to the room by the shouts of glee;
it took me about 30 seconds of observation to get hooked.

The Wii is quite different from any other game console. While you can sit
down in front of a Sony Playstation 3 or a Microsoft Xbox for hours on
end and do nothing more than move your fingers, the Wii pretty much forces
you to stand up, swing your arms, twist your body, jump up and down, and
do other overtly physical things to be successful.

The key to the Wii’s popularity is its wireless game controller, the Wii
Remote or, informally, Wiimote. These controllers have accelerometers inside
that communicate with the Wii console and provide a continuous stream of data
on what buttons have been pushed, how fast and in what direction the remote is
moving, and the orientation of the remote. In scientific terms, the Wii Remote
provides pitch, yaw and roll information, as well as velocity and vector. You
can also use it as a pointer, thanks to a sensor bar positioned above or below
a TV screen; the sensor detects IR (infrared) and the Nintendo Wii extrapolates
these readings to show the player’s position on the TV screen. Your on-screen
player, by the way, is called a Mii, and in most Wii titles, you can use your
own custom-designed Mii as your alter ego.

A separate controller, called a Nunchuk (a linguistic play on nunchaku,
the famed Okinawan “fighting sticks” seen in so many martial arts
films), attaches to the Wii Remote via a cord. It adds a trigger, a button, and
a joystick in addition to an accelerometer.

Using just the Wii Remote, you can go bowling, play golf, tennis and baseball
with Wii Sports, which is often bundled with the Wii console. Wii
Sports also includes boxing, which makes use of the Wii remote and the Nunchuk
to track the movement of both hands.

Wii Play, another popular title, offers billiards (pool, really),
table tennis, shooting (at targets), a tank battle, cow racing (don’t laugh;
it is intense) and two games that I won’t even attempt to explain.
All these games use the Wii Remote.

Front and back of the Wii Wheel for Mariokart Wii. The wheel on
the left has a Wii Remote nestled inside, and the light at the bottom indicates
this is for Player 1. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

So what’s so Mac-like?

Aside from the fact that the Wii is not for couch potatoes, it is hard not
to notice the elegance of the Wii human-computer interface. The Wii Remote
has a speaker, and the remote beeps, buzzes, whistles and chirps in response
to the user’s actions; you can silence the remote, but why? If you “hit” something
with the Wii Remote, it vibrates. After getting over the initial shock, the
user feedback seems very natural, consistent and appropriate.

If you have multiple Wii Remotes (and a Wii isn’t nearly as much fun
without a small crowd), you pair the remotes with the console, and lights
on each remote remind you that you are player 1, 2, 3 or 4. The console knows
the difference, and won’t let player 1 use player 2’s remote.
Visual indicators on the TV screen also remind you, making multi-player interactions
smooth and intuitive.

The games and other activities (there are many things you can do with a Wii
that aren’t in the least game-like) take good advantage of the controls.
In Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party, the Wii uses music and
visual prompts to guide you through dance steps; a special floor mat tracks
the position of your feet, and you are graded on your timing, accuracy, and
finesse. In contrast, Endless Ocean is not so much a game as an
extended lesson in marine biology as you “dive” and swim along
in scuba gear, finding various kinds of marine life and discovering facts
about the ocean. It is stunningly beautiful, but you don’t get wet
or seasick.

In May, Wii Fit reached the United States after achieving best-selling
status in Japan. Using a special wireless Wii Balance Board, Wii Fit guides
you through over forty different training activities involving yoga, strength
training, aerobic exercise and balance games. The Wii Balance Board, which
looks like an oversized bathroom scale but without any dials, measures your
weight and weight distribution as you engage in a wide variety of exercises.
Many exercises also use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, either alone or with
the Wii Balance Board, and all these instruments gather a huge amount of
information about your physical movements. From this, Wii Fit tracks
your weight, calorie expenditure, and “Wii Fit Age” on a calendar,
complete with graphs showing your progress. All the data is stored on the
Wii’s hard drive (and you can password protect your embarrassing personal
information). It is all pleasingly integrated; even fussy Mac owners should
be impressed.

The Wii Balance Board has two pressure sensors, one on each side, to accurately
measure your weight, balance and position. It communicates wirelessly to
the Wii. The button next to the warning labels at the bottom is the on-off
switch, which you activate with your toes. (Photo by Lawrence I. Charters)

Nerd heaven, Mac and Wii style

Recently Nintendo released Mariokart Wii. As the name suggests, Mariokart features
many of the characters from various Nintendo games of the past couple decades,
including Mario, the mustachioed hero of Super Mario. But this has
almost nothing to do with Mariokart.

Simply put, Mariokart is about racing. You pick your driver, from
one of a collection of Nintendo cartoon characters (or your Mii), and select
a style of motorcycle or racecar. You pick a racecourse. And you race. Wii
has a special steering wheel, the Wii Wheel, in which you fit the Wii Remote,
and you use buttons on the remote for braking, acceleration, and other actions.
After a slow, exasperating commute home from work, nothing picks you up quite
as much as racing around on ice floes dodging penguins or racing through
mines or racing through, in one course, a shopping mall.

Mariokart would be exceptional just on its own, but there is one
feature of the Wii that hasn’t been mentioned yet: it has WiFi. And if you have
broadband Internet access in your home, and a wireless router, you can race
against other people – in other countries.

Curious to see how this works, my spouse and I called our daughter, currently
doing graduate work in England. Coordinating our activities using Skype (an
Internet video telephone service, similar in function to Apple’s iChat),
we managed to get two Wii consoles talking to one another across 3,500-something
miles of ocean. We then matched up four Wii Remotes and four Wii Wheels,
two sets in the U.S. and two in England, and then my daughter, her fiancé,
my spouse and I raced. With audio and video exchanged by Skype and
two Mac laptops, it was exciting, it was hilarious, and it was also very
Mac-like. It “just worked.” We couldn’t help but notice
that our daughter’s fiancé, who has only had a driver’s
license for a few months, managed to win more races than the rest of us combined.

But there’s more!

Since the Wii has WiFi, it seems only fitting that you can use it as an
Internet device. You can get weather forecasts and read news stories. You
can send and receive E-mail (E-mail arrives on-screen in envelopes, which
is a nice touch), including E-mailing other Wiis. Nintendo recently added
a “channel” for polls, and you can participate in polls covering
politics, pet names, phobias and other subjects that don’t start with “p.” Some
of these tasks are easier to do on a Mac, that is true, but the polling mechanism,
in particular, is a masterpiece in interactive design.

If you like the Mac because of its elegance, and because it does such a
splendid job of quietly doing all the housekeeping in the background, letting
you concentrate on your work, then take a look at the Nintendo Wii. But be
warned: it isn’t
for couch potatoes.

Washington Apple Pi

Washington Apple Pi

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Washington Apple Pi is an international user group, with a history spanning three decades to the dawn of personal computing. The “Pi” continues to serve users of the very first personal computers as well as users of the most modern, advanced systems through its meetings, magazine, computer bulletin board and Internet services.
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